Water & Wastewater Treatment Magazine
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10 | DECEMBER 2016 | WWT | www.wwtonline.co.uk Industry leader Phil Stride, Strategic Projects Director, Tideway "This is the largest project in the water industry for 150 years, and it will probably be the largest for the next 150 years as well." project since it was conceived in March 2008, it has been a long journey to reach this point. "It's quite a signi• cant milestone for the project," he says. "Over the last • ve or six months we have been setting up at the main drive sites. There are 24 sites needed to build the Thames Tideway Tunnel but it is those three main drive sites - Carnworth Road (Hammersmith & Fulham), Kirtling Street (Battersea) and Chambers Wharf (Southwark) – that are on the critical path. They are our manufacturing hubs, if you like, where the sha' s are built, the tunnel boring machines are loaded into the ground, and where all the segments and the structure of the outer lining of the tunnel are put in." The exhaustive design and planning process for the tunnel saw 1100 locations considered for the 24 sites, but the key factor behind the choice of the three main drive sites was the ground composition. The sites neatly divide the project into three sections – west, central and east – each of which have di" erent geological make-up and therefore require a di" erent tunnel boring machine. In the west the team will be tunnelling through clay, in the central area through sand and gravel and in the east through chalk. Each section also has a di" erent team of contractors working on it: BAM Nuttall, Morgan Sindall and Balfour Beatty in the west; Ferrovial Agroman and Laing O'Rourke in the centre; and Costain, Vinci Construction Grand Projets and Bachy Soletanche in the east. This division makes sense from a procurement and risk-sharing point of view, but all the teams – including Amey which is the System Integrator – have been given every incentive to work together, says Stride. "It's important that each of the packages is successful, including the systems integration contract, so that all the parts are integrated into one successful solution. In recognition of that, an alliance has been put in place between the three joint ventures, the system integrator, Thames Water and Tideway. If the project is delivered successfully on time and on budget I n any large infrastructure project, the process of design, planning, procurement and stakeholder engagement required is so extensive that it feels like a particularly momentous step when the construction phase • nally gets underway. That is certainly the case for the £4.2BN Thames Tideway Tunnel, the 25km long super sewer which will carry tens of millions of tonnes of wastewater from London's combined sewer over¢ ows beneath the capital when it is • nished in 2022. WWT caught up with Tideway's Strategic Projects Director Phil Stride shortly before the • rst section of diaphragm wall was due to be poured at the drive site in Kirtling Street, Battersea – the • rst piece of construction work which will form a permanent part of the • nished project. For Stride, who has worked on the Interview by James Brockett